Boiled Fish
Nearly all kinds of fish may be boiled. The easiest method to do this is to brush a piece of cheesecloth with Snowdrift, tie the cleaned fish loosely in it, and plunge the whole into boiling water containing a teaspoonful of salt to the quart. Simmer gently until the flesh separates easily from the bones, allowing five minutes to the pound for small, or thinly-sliced fish, from eight to ten minutes, for thicker fish. Drain thoroughly and dress for service with parsley, radishes, cress, sliced lemon, French Fried Potatoes, or any other desired garnish.
Light colored fish, like halibut, cod, or salmon, may be accompanied by a contrasting sauce, as Tomato, or Russian Hollandaise Sauce. Or, in case a Cream Sauce is served, the color may be enlivened by bits of minced green peppers, pimentoes, or minced parsley.
Any of the sauces mentioned for Broiled Fish are suitable for use with Boiled Fish.
A sound method that survives intact: the cheesecloth sling is still the best way to get a whole fish out of the pot in one piece. Two things need translating — the shortening and the word "boiled."
- SnowdriftA hydrogenated cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company; the book exists to promote it. Any neutral solid fat or oil greases the cloth just as well — the point is only that the flesh does not stick and tear when you lift it out.
- Do not actually boilThe recipe says plunge into boiling water, then simmer gently. Hold the water at 170–180F, barely trembling. A rolling boil shreds the surface flakes and squeezes out moisture before the center is done.
- The salt is lightA teaspoon to the quart is enough to season the water but not the fish. For more flavor, salt the fish itself an hour ahead, or build a court bouillon with the water, adding a bay leaf, a few peppercorns, sliced onion and a splash of white wine or vinegar.
- TimingFive minutes per pound for thin pieces and eight to ten for thick; modern practice judges fish by feel rather than the clock, cooking until the flesh just parts at the backbone. "Separates easily from the bones" as a doneness cue tends to arrive slightly past ideal. Standard food-safety guidance calls for 145F at the thickest point.
- Cheesecloth techniqueUse a double layer, leave long tails at both ends as handles, and tie loosely so water circulates. A rack or an inverted plate in the bottom of the pan keeps the fish off direct heat.
- Draining mattersPoached fish carries a lot of water. Rest it on the cloth over a rack for a minute or two before plating, or a cream or hollandaise sauce will thin and slide off.
- Russian HollandaiseA period sauce name; versions of the day were variously enriched with caviar or with horseradish and cream. Any hollandaise, tomato sauce, or cream sauce answers.
- YieldFigure roughly 5-6 oz of cooked flesh per person; a whole fish yields well under half its weight in edible flesh.
This comes from a promotional cookbook issued by the makers of Snowdrift, a cottonseed-oil shortening — one of a great many branded cookbooks American food processors distributed in the early twentieth century to teach cooks to reach for their product instead of lard or butter. That commercial purpose explains the odd detail here: fish poached in water needs no fat at all, so the shortening is worked in as a coating for the cheesecloth, a genuinely useful trick pressed into service as advertising. The cloth sling itself is far older than the brand, and standard in nineteenth-century fish cookery, where a proper fish kettle with a perforated lifting plate was the alternative for anyone who could afford one. The garnishes — radishes, cress, sliced lemon, French fried potatoes — and the insistence that pale fish be given "a contrasting sauce" reflect the era's concern with color on the plate, a preoccupation of the domestic-science movement that shaped how these books were written.